Echoes
by Nurannoniel T.I.M.E
Summary: Spark bonds are powerful things. When one breaks, all that is left is an echo of what came before. JazzXProwl oneshot. T warning for char death.


Echoes

ProwlXJazz movieverse one-shot by Nurannoniel

A/n: Warning for angst and character death – have tissues ready. I was listening to "To You, Dear" from the dot hack GU vol. 3 game while writing this. It has the appropriate mournful feel to it… if you want to hear it, go to the Blue Laguna site and look for .hack along the handrail. Next, go down to the .hack //GU media section, OST vol. 2. It'll be number 111 on the list.

"No, I want two pieces!"

Jazz tried to jerk away from the behemoth's claws one last time as he felt himself be torn apart, but there was nothing he could do now. Wires sparked, metal creaked and snapped…

Echoes. That was all that was left of his bondmate; echoes. In his dream, Prowl reached out through the link again, hoping, praying to someone, anyone that it was _only_ a dream and that he'd wake up and… and… It was no use. He watched as Jazz's spark faded. He could feel Jazz shut him out to protect him from the pain. Before Jazz vanished however, there had been a thought. Bleached as it was by agony and time, Prowl clung to it:

_'I'm sorry Prowlie…'_

Laughing red optics blazed in Prowl's mind's eye as he started awake. _Not again_, he thought to himself solemnly. The tactician shifted on his berth to stare out at the stark grey Terran quarters he now inhabited. Almost against his will, Prowl's spark began to achingly reach out to its mate.

"One year, five months, twelve days, sixteen hours, six minutes, forty-three seconds… forty-four... forty five…" The whispered count to the darkness only held back the sensation for a moment longer. Slowly, it seeped into his spark one more time; the vision of a bridge connecting his and Jazz's sparks. Then the vast space between them slowly filling with an inky thickness, like the water of one of Earth's lakes becoming more and more turbid until it was too thick to even form a ripple across its surface. The sound of Prowl's own spark calling out, only to bounce back from that thickness in a hollow echo. Once, he mused, his call would have returned vibrant music. But no more…

Prowl sat up and tried to shake the echoes from his processor one more time. Jazz would be annoyed at him for mourning like this! With creaking joints and fading determination, the black and white police cruiser rose from his berth and set his optics on the door. Like the hundreds of days before it, today he would go through his routine one more time. Get up, drink half a cube of energon, and then do his paperwork until the end of his shift. Then he would return to his quarters to start the cycle over. If Prime ordered him to, he would go on patrol. If the twins pulled a prank, he would assign them extra chores. If Red Alert had a meltdown, he would talk him out of his security room. If Ratchet asked how Prowl was doing, he would reply "fine" and continue on with his routine.

And Prowl would do his best to ignore the fact he wasn't fine. Feeling this way about someone long dead and gone was illogical and an inefficient use of time. So Prowl would go through his day pretending that nothing was wrong, that the world wasn't spinning out of control and hadn't been for a year and a half now, that he had gotten over Jazz's death, that he was fine…

Prowl grabbed at the wall as a dizzy spell wreaked havoc on his stabilizers. When his vision cleared, he noticed numbly he had made it to the Commons. Bumblebee and his humans gave him odd looks as he dragged his way to the energon dispensers, but they said nothing. He lethargically half-filled a cube and headed towards his usual table in the corner. Not that he was really hungry enough for even half a cube today, but it was part of his routine…

"Ya comin', Prowlie?"

Prowl froze. Was that…

"Jazz?"

"C'mon, smile! Ya look so cute when ya smile…"

Glowing blue energon splashed in front of Prowl's vision, and for a horrifying moment the tactician thought it was his bondmate's.

A metallic chuckle filled his audios, and swiftly Prowl turned to face it. The room appeared dark but for the shadowed figure standing in the shining white doorway. It gestured for him to follow, and Prowl took a tentative step towards it.

Fearfully, Prowl whispered "Jazz? Is that you?"

The figure let out that sweet and light Jazz-chuckle again before turning and heading out the door.

"Jazz, wait!"

"There's nothing I can do, Optimus…"

The Autobot froze in his dash to the doorway. Was that Ratchet?

"Hurry up, ya slow-poke!" drifted in from beyond the doorway. Prowl found himself caught between chasing after the phantom Jazz and finding out what Ratchet had sounded so tormented about.

"Maybe it's just time to let him go..." That was the human, Mikaela's, voice! Prowl tried to call out to them, but found that his voice echoed wordlessly in the darkness. A vision of the med-bay ceiling interrupted with the faces of his friends flashed through his mind, and somehow he knew this was what Jazz saw as he had faded into the Matrix.

"Ya comin', Prowlie?"

Suddenly, it didn't matter. Suddenly, and quite illogically, _none_ of it mattered. Jazz was calling him by that horrible nickname again, and he had to find him and tell him to stop. Prowl started towards the doorway again. "Jazz, how many times have I told you…"

3 ~ 3 ~ 3

Optimus Prime gingerly laid a hand on his tactical officer's brow. "Goodbye, old friend." Behind him came a loud, angry crash.

"It's not right! How could I have missed it?!" Ratchet hit his hand against an empty table again before letting it fall to his side. The medic let the quizzical and mournful silence hang for a moment before continuing. "His spark faded due to energon deprivation. The fool has probably been starving himself to death out of grief and never even realized it. His bond with Jazz breaking must have been too much for even Prowl to handle."

The twins and Bumblebee passed shocked and saddened glances between them before Sideswipe finally spoke.

"At least he and Jazz are together again…" Solemnly, the red twin turned and walked out of the med bay, leaving his mentor to his eternal rest. One by one the remaining Autobots followed until only Sunstreaker remained. And then, finally, even Sunstreaker turned and walked away, leaving only an echo in his wake:

"'Till all are One."


End file.
